gordie91 wrote:So true. For me things were all good until finally I sent my exit email. We traveled a lot during that time because of my child's college sports career. We had actually started going to another church, the heretical and damned Orthodox Church (didn't they break from the Catholics?
). I felt like we should remove ourselves with the exit letter so that people would not talk or bug us about not being there on Sundays. I too, stopped the singing, praying and everything else. (Towards the end I felt like I was being hypocritical) So when the preacher responded to my exit email he replied with the obligatory "sorry to see you leave" and "hate to see you go"
BUT, there is always a but. The but was we were not very committed and he even sent a letter to the church my parents attend using the same language. Why were we not committed? We weren't there much and didn't do all the things above plus we didn't have the kid (youngest) in bible class on Wednesday Night even though we explained that reason multiple times - behaviors, routine and medication schedule.
I said all that above because in my final response to my father-in-law I wrote, I asked him, would he rather me warm a pew and be there every time the doors are open all the while not believing or in agreement with the CoC. Would my presence save me? Yes in a sense it is all about appearances.
So incredibly true. My parents know that I've left to some extent, but they aren't willing to recognize it yet beyond the mandatory, "
But...you know the truth..." guilt trip. Even though they acknowledge that not everyone in a coC is going to make it to heaven, their attitude is that the name on the building is the starting point rather than looking at the doctrinal positions. It went to the point in the discussion where, after seeing the ACNA parish we're at, they commented that they said they wanted to see us somewhere at least closer to the truth. My dad then even went so far as to say that he thought Mormons were closer than what he saw that day.
Here's the thing, I was friends with and then dated a preacher's daughter for a while. It was mostly long distance and we wanted to get married. When I got back to the US from Afghanistan, one of her first things was, "You need to find a place that is coC." Mind you, no one was questioning what we were doing when we went on vacation together. Never mind the fact we spent a weekend in DC or traveled a couple of other places without any problem, even though we were sharing hotel rooms. But when I told her about the congregations in the area where I was stationed (I was still open to being coC, but that was a whole different level of crazy in that town...even my parents saw it), her answer was: just place membership and attend enough for people to know who you are, even if it isn't every service. Along with some other factors, it wasn't a good idea to continue on because of how she was pushing on that for the appearance. She was a great person otherwise, it just felt very suffocating in having to present the image of being part of a coC "royal family", even having come out of an "upper class" level one myself. I missed her and thought about trying to get back with her shortly after the breakup, but remembered that it wasn't a good idea.
So the idea of showing up somewhere just to look right to me is lying. It's hypocritical.
So good on you for getting out of there. Sorry you had to deal with the gossip of the preacher contacting family. That is out of line and arrogant to no end. "You don't want to play ball? Fine, we'll work at dividing your family to 'correct' you and because we feel it's right, we'll just call it correction by necessary inference." Talk about bitter apples.
